Happy birthday Mara! Recipe: Banana Pineapple Cake

I cannot believe my little Mara has turned two years old already! We celebrated her birthday last Friday. It has been such an eventful two years, filled with doctor visits, specialists, and lots of yucky testing. I have such hope for this coming year, as my baby is now thriving and moving on with her life.

I was determined to make my child a delicious birthday cake. I will admit to last year just making a cake using a recipe I had found that worked and not putting too much thought into it. The cake was OK, but I wanted her cake this year to be GREAT! Doesn't every child deserve that?

Mara is not much of a cake and cookie eater. She loves the Enjoy Life snickerdoodle cookies, and the banana muffins that I had made for her. I was tempted to make a carrot cake for her, but decided to go with something that had banana since it is something I know she loves.

I have recently bought two new glutenfree cookbooks in hopes to learn how to bake using all the different glutenfree flours that are out there. You really need to use a combination of them, and deciphering the exact measurements of each has been my downfall. So , I bought these cookbooks, and figured I could find ways to modify the dairy and soy.

To make a long story short, I found a recipe for a Banana Pineapple Cake in "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods" by Bette Hagman. This recipe does not contain dairy or soy in the original recipe, so I was sold! The only issue I had was that it called for teff flour, and potato flour, neither of which we had and my poor husband drove to three different natural food stores last week and couldn't find it. So I had to improvise. I have found places to order it online, so next time I make it I will try using the suggested flours and let you know the difference! For the recipe below, I am giving the flours we used this time.

Here is the cake. She wanted a puppy dog and as you can see, I am not gifted in cake decorating. But it made her happy, so that is all that should matter :)

I used some all natural sprinkles on the ears, an Enjoy Life cookie for the nose and Enjoy Life chocolate chips for outlining. I also used a Kettle Valley fruit snack for the tongue.

The cake was so good! Mara loved it, my husband loved it...even my inlaws loved it when they came over Sunday. The pineapple makes it really moist. I highly recommend trying it! If you can use wheat flour, go ahead, but reduce the amount of baking powder to one tsp and omit the zanthan gum.


Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Millet Flour
• 1 1/2 cups brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup potato starch flour
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 2 tsp xanthan gum
• 2 tsp Egg Replacer
• 1 tsp gelatin
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp apple pie spice
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups diced bananas (about 3 bananas)
• 1 cup chopped pecans (optional- we did not add this)
• one 8-ounce can crushed pineapple with juice

(These instruction are pretty much the same as the book!) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 3 8" round cake pans with wax or parchment paper and grease, or grease a 9 x 13 oblong cake pan.

In a bowl, first combine the brown rice flour, potato starch flour and tapioca flour. Add the millet flour and whisk in the following: xanthan gum, Egg Replacer, gelatin, baking soda, baking powder, salt and apple pie spice.

In a mixing bowl, beat the oil and sugar until light. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients but do not beat it to hard. Stir in the bananas, pecans, and pineapple with juice until well blended.

Spoon into your prepared pans. Bake round cake pans for about 25 minutes, or the oblong pan for 40-45 minutes (or until tester comes out clean).

Frosting

I found a recipe for "Royal Frosting" here. I added some vanilla extract towards the end. It was really good!

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
  
• 1 egg white
• 1/3 cup boiling water

1. Mix all ingredients together, adding boiling water last.
2. Beat on high for 6-10 minutes until frosting forms peaks.